While LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE is a big win, BROKEN FLOWERS fell short of the mark. In fact, I can’t remember the last time a movie aggravated me as much as BROKEN FLOWERS. (SPOILERS ahead, so stop reading if you don’t want to know about the plot).
The biggest problem with BROKEN FLOWERS is that it could have been a really satisfying movie, but instead, it really pissed me off. The gist of the movie is that Bill Murray (in another great, and especially understated performance), is an aging Don While LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE is a big win, BROKEN FLOWERS fell short of the mark. In fact, I can’t remember the last time a movie aggravated me as much as BROKEN FLOWERS. (SPOILERS ahead, so stop reading if you don’t want to know about the plot).
The biggest problem with BROKEN FLOWERS is that it could have been a really satisfying movie, but instead, it really pissed me off. The gist of the movie is that Bill Murray (in another great, and especially understated performance), is an aging Don Juan, who gets a letter from someone claiming to be an ex-girlfriend, who has a 20-year-old son. The letter also claims that Bill Murray’s character is the father, and that his son has taken a trip to find him. The letter is also unsigned, so he doesn’t know who the mother is.
Murray’s character doesn’t know what to believe, but convinced by his neighbor Winston (Geoffrey Wright), goes on a road trip of his own to visit each of the women he can remember dating 20 years ago and see if there’s any truth to the letter.
As Murray’s character visits each woman (and they’re all bizarre in the their own way), I was into the journey. It’s a little road trip, a little mystery, and you want him to get some closure. But he doesn’t.
After returning home, Murray meets a 19-year-old who [i]might[/i] be his son, but who runs away from Murray, and never comes back. Huh?
And the movie ends!
I don’t need to have all the loose ends tied up, but this movie didn’t tie up any of them. None. I’ve heard people say that it’s "artistic," but to me it was insulting. If you are going to ask the audience to go along with your movie for almost two hours, it the film maker’s responsibility to give them something to take with them. In what could have been a satisfying movie, BROKEN FLOWERS just annoyed the crap out of me. And not in a good way.
Don’t tease me. Either deliver, or don’t bother inviting me along. But don’t intentionally give me nothing. That’s crap. It’s not artistic. It’s insulting.
BROKEN FLOWERS could have been a good little movie. I was into it, and then got left with nothing.
What a waste.
